Home
LOVE, HATE AND FORGIVENESS - UPCOMING CRYING TREE EVENTS
JULY 22ND 7 PM POWELL'S CITY OF BOOKS, CEDAR HILLS CROSSING, PORTLAND, OREGON
JULY 29TH 7PM BOOKWORKS, ALBUQUERQUE NEW MEXICO
Click here to buy The Crying Tree
"Beautifully written, expertly crafted, forcefully rendered. Naseem Rakha lays bare all the ambiguities and nuances of our culture in a story that is compelling and deep. The Crying Tree is a story of forgiveness and redemption, but at its core it is a love story as well, and that is the most powerful story of all." Garth Stein, author The Art of Racing in the Rain
"A mesmerizing book -- one any writer would envy and any reader would love." Jacquelyn Mitchard, author The Deep End of the Ocean
“For anyone who has ever wondered how forgiveness is possible, even when the pain is overwhelming, wonder no more. The Crying Tree takes you on a journey you won't soon forget." Sister Helen Prejean
Author of Dead Man Walking
"Naseem Rakha writes with both clarity and sympathy about one of the most mysterious and evasive of human impulses: forgiveness. THE CRYING TREE is a memorable and deeply humane novel." Jon Clinch - Author Finn
"This complex, layered story of a family's journey toward justice and forgiveness comes together through spellbinding storytelling." Publishers Weekly
The capacity to forgive the unforgivable has long intrigued award winning journalist and author Naseem Rakha. She has witnessed it in her work as a teacher and consultant for Native American tribes, as a mediator in the clean up of the nuclear site that created the Nagasaki bomb, and as a reporter covering state run executions. It was this later experience that led her to write her groundbreaking novel The Crying Tree. Set in southern Illinois and central Oregon, Rakha tells a story of a mother who must overcome the hate, grief, and secrets that surround the murder of her 15-year-old son, and defy church and family as she attempts to stop the execution of the man who killed her boy.
With the heart of a storyteller, Naseem explores the death penalty and forgiveness with her audience through the lens of our justice system, her experiences as a reporter for public radio, as well as subsequent interviews with crime victims, inmates, corrections officials and exonerated death row prisoners. In composing her work, Naseem relies on the backdrop of the land and the landscape of human lives to build drama, emotion and depth. Naseem finds that within these very human stories lie a multitude of lessons about duty, honor, grief, pain, hatred and the degree to which forgiveness can not only extend but also heal. For writers searching for their own voice, Naseem has much to offer with her methods of reaching readers through characters and place.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Recipient of the 2010 PNBA Book Award
- Midwest Booksellers Association summer pick
- Una Madre Non Dimentica (The Crying Tree) released in Italy
- Released by MacMillan in the United Kingdom
- Released by Sun Color in Taiwan
- Barnes & Noble's autumn Discover Great New Writers pick.
- BookPage debut novel pick.
- Goodreads Mover and Shaker
- San Francisco Chronicle BESTSELLER
- BOOK PASSAGE First Editions Club pick.
- North American release by Broadway Books
- BookExpo America EMERGING VOICE
"BOTH TRAGIC AND REDEMPTIVE, THE CRYING TREE MIGHT JUST BE THIS YEAR'S LOVELY BONES."
Brian Sweaney, Recorded Books
FEATURED ON WEBSITE
- KLCC Podcast with Naseem Rakha
-
Sands of Oman - Film by Naseem Rakha
-
Guest Blog on The Birth of a Novel
-
Guest Blog on Author Exposure: Music and The Crying Tree
-
OPB interviews Naseem Rakha on Think Out Loud
-
IMIX Playlist -- a selection of the music that influenced scenes in The Crying Tree
-
WNPR Podcast -- On Forgiveness with Charles Griswold, Naseem Rakha and Katy Hutchison
-
KBOO Podcast of interview with Peabody Award winning radio producer Dmae Roberts
-
My CONVERSATION WITH SISTER HELEN PREJEAN, author of Dead Man Walking.
"Gifted storyteller Naseem Rakha has crafted a beautiful and passionate novel that never becomes maudlin or unbelievable. All of the characters are genuinely human, and the author even manages to save a few surprising plot detrails to the end. Highly recommended. "
"More than a novel detailing the oft-chronicled and frequently patsied nature of forgiveness, this is a colorful and creative biography of hate -- about its insidiousness and ferocity but also its fateful familiarity. In ways both subtle and overt, Rakha names it, gives it form and consequence."
Ellen Urbani, the Oregonian
"THE CRYING TREE is a fabulous family drama that focuses on what happens to surviving loved ones when a violent unexpected tragedy occurs."
Midwest Book Review
"Hauntingly beautiful...."
Deseret News
"A powerful novel full of moral questions..."
The Las Vegas Review Journal
"Powerful and stunning debut novel... Written with such wisdom and sensitivity."
The Spokesmen Review
"A gripping, well-paced tale, compassionate without being mawkish."
The Guardian
"You really want to keep reading it - maybe for the rest of your life."
Linda McThrall
"An enthralling story."
Cherie Newman - High Country News
"The Crying Tree is everything that great fiction stands for."
Owen Taylor - The Weekly Volcano
Full reviews here